


Crossing the Plains

by Ruusverd



Series: Echoes of the Fall AU [7]
Category: Echoes of the Fall - Adrian Tchaikovsky, Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Bronze Age, Gen, Shapeshifting, a whole lot of walking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:15:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25824226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruusverd/pseuds/Ruusverd
Summary: Another installment of the Echoes of the Fall AU. Featuring a lot of walking and talking, an unwanted encounter, a very angry gremlin child, and Jaskier being very skeptical of Geralt's planning skills.
Relationships: Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon & Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: Echoes of the Fall AU [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1863010
Comments: 7
Kudos: 14





	Crossing the Plains

**Author's Note:**

> Extra long update this time! I thought about splitting it into two chapters but the first half would have been fairly boring on its own I think. In hindsight I probably should have posted this whole series as chapters of the same work, but oh well.

The journey north was hard and frustrating for all of them. Ciri frequently woke up screaming from nightmares, and would only sleep at all when Geralt Stepped and let her curl up against his wolf form. The iron coat couldn’t have been comfortable to sleep against, but at least when Geralt was Stepped the metal was hidden beneath his thick white fur. Despite the strain and constant exhaustion, it made Jaskier’s heart melt to see the girl sleeping with her head pillowed on the wolf’s side, her hand clutching the amulet around her neck.

They waited out the hottest part of each day in whatever shade they could find, and kept traveling after sunset until they started tripping in the dark. Ciri was young and had never made such a long journey, so she had to be carried for much of the time. They would have made better time with Ciri on Plotka and Geralt and Jaskier traveling Stepped,but Ciri had also never ridden a horse before and flatly refused to be on Plotka’s back unless Geralt rode with her. Geralt wasn’t willing to ask his friend to carry both of them, so either Geralt or Jaskier had to carry the girl when she got too tired to walk.

Carrying Ciri meant that Geralt was restricted to his human form, and Jaskier knew it was grating on his nerves to be limited to a human’s dull senses when he thought there might be danger. Jaskier tried to do as much of the carrying as he could, but he simply didn’t have either the strength or endurance to carry her for long. Instead, he took to flying in high circles above them at regular intervals to look for any sign of pursuit, which seemed to make Geralt a bit less jumpy. And he took his turn standing guard for half the night so that Geralt could get some sleep between Ciri’s nightmares.

“Geralt, why don’t we go west towards the river?” Jaskier demanded on the third morning. Or perhaps the fourth. Time was starting to blur together in his mind, “We could find a party of the Horse Society and get them to ferry us north in a fraction of the time it will take us on foot.”

Geralt glanced down at Ciri, who was walking beside him holding his hand and looking half asleep on her feet. He looked back up at Jaskier with a grim expression, “The moment we join a Horse trading party there will be stories flying up and down the river through the whole Horse Society about a pale Iron Wolf, a Crow in colorful clothing, a Lion’s child, and a Horse that doesn’t Step traveling in a party. Even if we try to disguise ourselves, that’s a combination unusual enough to stand out. The Kasra wouldn’t have to be a genius to figure out where we went.”

Jaskier grimaced, “It does sound a bit like the beginning of a bad joke, now that you mention it. Surely they already know where we’re headed, though? The Crocodile man we left behind will have told them it was an Iron Wolf who took Ciri, and where else would a Wolf go but north?”

“They might, or they might assume we’d take her to Eist’s tribe farther east, or some other Lion tribe where she might have close kin. I’d prefer that they not know for sure where we’re headed until we’re far enough north to blend in more.” Geralt tipped his head to the side, “But you are right, I think we’ll have to join the river sooner or later. I can hunt once our rations run out, but I don’t know this land well enough to be sure of finding water. Farther north we’ll also have to worry more about the Laughing Men. So far between my iron coat and our lack of any obvious valuables they’ve kept their distance, but I’d rather not be caught in their territory with a Lion child.”

Ciri stopped walking and started crying again, much to Geralt’s visible confusion.

Jaskier rolled his eyes, “Wonderful, she doesn’t have enough nightmares already, let’s bring up the possibility of being attacked by the hereditary enemy the Lions use to scare their cubs into behaving.” He took an unkind satisfaction from Geralt’s guilty wince, then immediately felt guilty himself. From what Jaskier had gathered over the years, Geralt’s own childhood hadn’t involved many adults watching what they said in front of him. He likely had no idea how to act around a child beyond his basic protective instincts.

“I don’t care about the stupid Laughing Men!” Ciri wailed, “I don’t care about the Crocodiles! I’m hungry, and I’m tired, and my feet hurt, and I want to go home!”

Geralt picked her up and rocked her slightly, tilting his head back and staring at the sky as if begging the gods for strength. Jaskier didn’t blame him at all. No matter how much Geralt loved her, or how much sympathy they both had for the girl’s situation, neither of them were used to traveling with children. Being suddenly handed an angry, frightened child who could hardly sleep, wouldn’t ride, and had the most powerful nation in the world chasing her didn’t make the transition any easier.

When Ciri’s crying seemed to be tapering off, Geralt set her down and dug into their supplies fora strip of jerky. “I know you’re tired, but we need to keep moving. The faster we move, the faster we’ll get to somewhere we can rest,” he waited for her to take the jerky, then hoisted her up on his back and started walking again.

Jaskier pursed his lips, watching Ciri hang on to Geralt’s shoulders with one arm and gnaw on the meat with her blunt milk teeth as they walked, still hiccuping and sniffling. The greatest weapon a wolf had wasn’t its teeth or its claws, but its endurance. They were neither the fastest nor the strongest of beasts, but they could keep running longer than even the fleetest of deer and keep fighting longer than the most powerful of boars.Nature had not been so generous to Crows, Horses, or young Lion girls. Even Geralt wouldn’t be able to keep up this level of exertion on insufficient rations and sleep indefinitely, especially not while wearing his heavy iron shirt day and night.

“Geralt, we can’t keep going on like this,” Jaskier said, “The best speed we can manage isn’t fast enough to outrun anyone who might be chasing us, and we’re driving ourselves into the ground to go as fast as we are. The way we’re going, if anyone _is_ after us, when they catch up we’ll be too tired to do anything but fall down and hope they kill us quickly. We _have_ to go to the river.”

“One more day, Jaskier. We’ll start veering west tomorrow, if we don’t see signs of anyone behind us by then.” Geralt answered without looking back.

“Not one more day, now!” Jaskier demanded, surprised at his own daring. Odd how the prospect of dying of heat and exhaustion in the middle of a gods forsaken savanna made everything else seem so much less intimidating.

Geralt half-turned and looked at Jaskier incredulously, somehow not breaking the rhythm of his strides.

“We thought we’d be going to Atahlan after we got Ciri; we didn’t pack enough food to go all the way back to the Crown of the World by land. Stopping to hunt would slow us down even more, and you said yourself we can’t be sure of finding water. We have to head for the river, or we might as well sit down right here and wait to die.”

Ciri stopped chewing and stared at Jaskier with wide eyes. Jaskier tried not to feel guilty for scaring her, and stared at Geralt determinedly, “I mean it Geralt, either we start heading west today or I will sit down right here and not move until you see sense,” he plopped down in the dusty grass to prove his point. Even Plotka was staring at him now, but he didn’t care.

“Fine,” Geralt looked like he wanted to snarl but couldn’t muster the energy, “We’ll start heading west, just get up and keep walking, I can’t carry you, too,” the Wolf turned and started walking again, but angled to the right of his original heading. Jaskier would have preferred a steeper westward angle, but he decided to take what he could get for now.

Jaskier eyed Plotka, wondering if she’d let him ride if he Stepped, but decided against trying it. Geralt was irritable enough as it was. _Don’t_ _pull_ _a_ _wolf’s tail,_ he repeated the old Crow adage to himself, _unless you’re willing to_ _risk his teeth_ _._

He wished there was a secure way for Geralt to send a message to his lover among the Snake priests in Atahlan. According to Geralt, she’d spent years working to guide the politics of the south along the course the Snake charted, so she might know why the Kasra was so interested in Calanthe’s granddaughter. On the other hand, they had no way of knowing if the this whole situation with Ciri was part of the Snake priests’ manipulations to begin with. Perhaps it was just as well the priestess was out of reach.

Sluggishly, he Stepped and pumped his wings to gain enough height to scan the area. To his dismay, he spotted a single, distant figure traveling along their trail. Cawing an alarm to Geralt, Jaskier drifted south, trying to imitate the flight patterns of his mute brothers so as not to call attention to himself. He didn’t have to get very close to recognize the Crocodile that they’d left behind after rescuing Ciri. He must have gotten himself loose and decided to chase them instead of retreating south with the rest of his warband.

Jaskier felt a surge of frustration, both at the Crocodile for pursuing them and Geralt for not slitting the man’s throat in the first place, debt or no debt. They’d managed to rescue Ciri because she’d slowed the man down, but now the situation was reversed. Jaskier banked west, checking the path ahead of them and seeing no one, friend or foe. He circled back to Geralt and Stepped.

“That Crocodile we left tied up is chasing us,” he blurted out the moment his feet hit the ground, “He’s still a ways back, but he’s moving faster than we are.”

Geralt’s face was grim. He lowered Ciri to the ground. “Jaskier, you and Ciri take Plotka and ride northwest as fast as you can, I’ll go back and stop him, then catch up to you.”

“No,” Jaskier refused, “You and Ciri ride Plotka and I can keep up in the air. It’s taken him days to catch up to us, if we head due west and Plotka can keep going long enough maybe we can stay ahead of him long enough to reach the river.”

“And then what?” Geralt demanded, “Even if we managed to reach the river _and_ we immediately encountered a Horse trading party _and_ they happened to be going north and not south, he’s a _Crocodile_. He’s faster and more deadly in the water than at any other time. We’d be spending the last of our strength to reach a place where he’d have all the advantages. Better to stand and fight him here.”

“Then we’ll all stay,” Jaskier insisted, “Plotka wouldn’t leave you behind even if I tried to get her to go, and I’m not leaving you either. Besides, none of the rest of us can fight. On our own we’d all get killed by the first group of raiders that spotted us. It wouldn’t do us any good to run without you.”

Geralt swore, but didn’t argue with Jaskier’s logic. He looked south, as if expecting the Crocodile to come swarming out of the tall grass at any moment. “How long until he catches up?”

“If we stay here? A few hours, maybe half a day I think. I couldn’t see him until I was fairly high up. Longer if we keep moving, of course.”

Ciri looked between them with frightened eyes, half hidden behind Geralt, “Are we going to die?” she asked tremulously, clutching at her necklace.

“Everything that lives, dies,” Geralt answered, and Jaskier briefly considered slapping him upside the head for sharing that profound bit of wisdom, “but I’ll do everything I can to make sure we aren’t the ones that die today.”

Ciri seemed surprisingly reassured by that. Jaskier supposed seeing one’s whole tribe killed by giant reptiles likely skewed one’s perspective. “What are we going to do?” she asked.

“We’re going to sit down under that tree, eat, and then sleep until he’s close enough to worry about,” Geralt decided, “Let him run in the heat while we rest.”

Geralt fell asleep almost at once after they’d finished eating, and Ciri quickly joined him. Jaskier, unlike his Wolf friend, hadn’t been trained to sleep whenever and wherever he had the opportunity. Instead of trying and no doubt failing to sleep, he Stepped and perched in the top of the tree to keep watch. The Crocodile wouldn’t reach them for hours yet, but it wouldn’t hurt to keep a lookout. Ruffling his feathers a bit and adjusting his feet on the branch, Jaskier settled in to wait.

* * *

Geralt woke up to Jaskier’s warning cry, momentarily unsure where he was. The disorientation passed quickly. He’d learned young to fall asleep and wake up in the space of seconds. Gently he pulled away from Ciri’s arms and stood up, giving himself a good shake and stretching to work the stiffness out of his limbs, then Stepping and stretching again with human limbs.

To the south he could see a dark figure moving towards them. Looking up, he gestured for Jaskier to come down from the tree where he was perched. He waited until the Crow fluttered down, staggering slightly as he Stepped. “Stay here, I’m going to go meet him,” he told Jaskier, holding up a hand before Jaskier had a chance to protest, “I’m not going far. He’s already in sight, I’m just going to meet him halfway. I don’t want to have to worry that he’ll duck around me and grab you or Ciri before I can catch him.”

Jaskier looked unhappy, but nodded in agreement, “Are you going to wake Ciri before you go?”

Geralt grimaced, but shook his head, “No sense in upsetting her before it’s necessary. If he does get past me or it looks like I’m losing, wake her up and go. Don’t look back.”

Jaskier agreed, but he was looking at Geralt through the painted side of his face so Geralt assumed he was lying. Geralt growled in frustration, but didn’t have time to argue. Quickly he signaled to Plotka that he needed her to stay with Jaskier, in the mixture of words and gestures she seemed to understand somewhat. She snorted and tossed her head unhappily, but didn’t follow when he walked away.

The river man paused in surprise upon seeing Geralt stalking towards him, but recovered quickly and started moving faster to meet him. Geralt could see crude bandages covering the injury from where Geralt had stabbed him a few days before. The man must have been truly desperate to move at speed over such a distance with a fresh stab wound, even if it had been fairly shallow. Geralt drew his long iron knife when the man was a stone’s throw away and fell into a defensive stance.

“Wait!” the man called, “Wait! I don’t want to fight you! I surrender!” he dropped to his knees, holding up empty hands.

Geralt paused, caught off guard. Empty hands didn’t mean much from a man who had a crocodile’s teeth at his disposal, but Geralt didn’t want to launch an attack until he knew what game the man thought he was playing. “You chased us for days halfway across the Plains because you wanted to surrender?” Geralt made every bit of his skepticism obvious in his tone.

“They’ll kill me! The River Lords will kill me if I go back without the girl!”

Geralt frowned, “Why would they kill you? You’re one of them.”

The southerner scowled, “I’m _not_ one of them, I’m a _Caiman,_ I told you! My people are part of the Sun River Nation, but only the people of Old Crocodile are River Lords.”

Geralt scoffed, “You look like a crocodile, you smell like a crocodile, and you fight like a crocodile. As far as I’m concerned that makes you a crocodile, just a smaller one than most.”

The man shook his head vehemently, “These things are known: the coyote is the smaller cousin of the wolf. Would you call them the same, just because they look and smell the same?”

“I take your point,” Geralt said dryly, “but it doesn’t matter. I don’t care if you call yourself a Crocodile, a Caiman, or a Capybara, I’m not letting you take the girl. If you try, I will kill you.”

The man swallowed, “These things are also known. But Emhyr Kasra is obsessed, he’s determined to have her brought alive before the Daybreak Throne in Atahlan. If I go back without her he’ll have me killed, and maybe my whole clan with me.”

“If the Kasra’s so anxious to have her alive, why did you wipe out the Xin’trae tribe? It’s a miracle she wasn’t killed by accident in the confusion.”

“It was those gods-damned river pirates! We couldn’t keep the Dragons in check! The moment the Lions threw the first spear they went mad and started killing everyone. I found the girl in Calanthe’s hut and I just ran, I didn’t know what else to do!”

“Why does the Kasra want Ciri so badly? What use is a Lion girl to him, and why this one in particular?”

“No one knows, except maybe the priests. All I know is that he’d tear the world apart to have her. I wouldn’t be surprised if he executes the entire warband I served in when they return empty handed,” he shuffled forward on his knees, stopping when Geralt raised his knife in warning and growled, “Look, the Kasra isn’t the only one who will be after her. The Kasra’s rivals will want to kill her to spite him, rival tribes of the Lion will want to kill her to spite Calanthe’s memory, and the Laughing Men will kill her because she’s a Lion. Even once you reach the north, plenty of others I’m sure would kill her simply because she’s a foreign child without a tribe. Let me come with you, help you protect her.”

Geralt barked a laugh, “Are you insane or joking?”

“Listen to me! We both want her alive, and we both want her safe. I can’t take her from you, and even if I could I wouldn’t be able to get her back across the length of the Plains all by myself if she fought me the whole way. I can’t go back home without her, and I can’t let her be killed. Let me help you keep her safe from everyone else.”

“And one morning my friends and I find our throats cut while you carry the girl away?”

“I won’t, I swear on the Caiman, I swear I’ll only help keep her safe.”

“What’s your name?”

“Cahir, of the Ceallach River.”

“Not Cahirater, or Cahirader, or some such child’s name?”

The Caiman shook his head, “My father is dead, I am Cahir.”

“Hmm,” Geralt studied him, trying to gauge his honesty, “A minute ago you surrendered to me. If I asked you to give me your name as pledge, would you do it?”

Cahir looked appalled, but reluctantly nodded, “If that’s what it takes for you to believe I mean none of you any harm, yes.”

Geralt slowly straightened from his defensive stance, eyeing the Caiman dubiously. Then he backed away, gesturing with his knife for him to get up. “I have no use for a slave, and even less for your southern notions about the taking and giving of names. But I know what such an offer means to your people.”

“Then you’ll let me join your warband?” Cahir got to his feet eagerly.

“No,” Geralt felt an out-of-place urge to laugh at hearing their little group termed a ‘warband,’ “But I won’t waste my energy trying to drive you away and I won’t fight you unless you attack us or try to take Ciri from us. Understand this, river man: I am not accepting you into my band, and I am offering you no hospitality as my guest. I will give you neither food nor protection. I am not obligated to you in any way. As you say in the south, these things are known: I won’t hesitate to kill you if you make one wrong move.”

Cahir looked disappointed, but nodded, “I agree to your terms, Wolf.”

“You may regret coming along once we reach the north,” Geralt said, sheathing his knife, “I’ve heard our winters are far too harsh for cold-blooded shapes. Most southerners flee back to their own lands at the first snowfall.”

“I suppose I will have to see for myself,” the Caiman said, looking even more unhappy, “Summer’s just begun, so I’ll have time to get used to it. I hope.”

Geralt grunted and turned away, walking back towards the tree where his little ‘warband’ waited. He saw that Ciri had woken up, and was viciously fighting Jaskier’s attempts to stop her from running to Geralt. Jaskier looked up and saw the two men walking towards them and froze, clearly unsure if he was supposed to take Ciri and run or not. The girl took advantage of his distraction to stomp on his foot with all her strength, and pulled free when Jaskier let go with a howl of pain.

Geralt expected her to run straight to him, but when she got close he saw that all her attention was on Cahir, murder blazing in her eyes. He stretched out an arm and snatched her off the ground before she could launch herself bodily at the Caiman. She screeched in rage and struggled against Geralt’s hold, “Leave us alone!” she howled, bucking in Geralt’s arms, “Stop attacking us! Go away, go die in a pit, shit-eater!” One of her flailing arms smashed into Geralt’s nose before he managed to pin her arms and his eyes blurred with water.

“Ciri, stop!” he ordered, “Calm down! We've made a truce, he isn’t attacking us.”

Ciri struggled a few more seconds, then went limp in Geralt’s arms. “I hate you!” she hissed at Cahir venomously, “If you hurt any of us I’ll kill you dead! I’ll cut your throat in your sleep and leave your ghost to rot in its human shell!” Geralt shifted her around so he could carry her on his hip and resumed walking back to Jaskier and Plotka, ignoring the increasingly creative threats and imprecations being spat over his shoulder at the Caiman. _Calanthe’s granddaughter indeed,_ he thought, both amused and annoyed. At least the river man had the good sense to hang back a ways, out of reach of her claws.

Jaskier was leaning against the tree clutching his foot, his eyes wide as he watched them approach.

“This is Cahir of the Ceallach River,” Geralt told Jaskier, “He’s agreed not to attack us and I’ve agreed I won’t attack him as long as he behaves. He’s neither my companion nor my guest, so if Ciri manages to tear his throat out it’s his own fault and I’m not responsible. He can’t say he wasn’t warned.” Idly he noted that Ciri was starting to slow down and repeat herself. Hopefully her rage-induced burst of energy was wearing off.

Jaskier stared at him for a few seconds before asking resignedly “You don’t have the slightest idea what you’re doing, do you?”

“I’m going north and I’m taking Ciri with me.” Geralt answered promptly, “Everything else we can figure out later.”

“Oh good,” Jaskier said dryly, “I’m so glad you have a plan.”

**Author's Note:**

> My spell check has stopped correcting Ciri to Siri, but it still tries to change Cahir to either Chair or Cashier, which is both funny and annoying.
> 
> Jaskier is wrong about the wolf's greatest weapon, incidentally. Wolves *are* classified as endurance predators, but the biggest advantage they have is the pack. They can hunt prey much faster/stronger than themselves because they are cooperative hunters and can herd their prey and tag-team in a chase or a fight so they all have a chance to catch their breath. But Jaskier's knowledge of wolves is based traveling with Geralt, who has no 'pack' and whose endurance is enhanced by being Too Stubborn To Quit, so he can be forgiven for the misconception.


End file.
